Quiz 2 – The Answers

Below I have matched the watches to their correct movement close-ups, and also included a picture of the whole movement with the approximate area of the close-up marked by a white rectangle.

Watch #1 …………………………………………………………. Movement #3

A 1950’s Hamilton manual-wind with a Hamilton Grade 639 17j movement (I’m not sure what the base calibre for this one is). In the close-up pic I cropped the “6” off the “639” to make it a little more difficult to identify.

Watch #2 …………………………………………………………. Movement #10

A Vantage balance-wheel electric from the late 60’s/early 70’s. Vantage was a subsidary of Hamilton, set up to produce inexpensive watches to compete with Timex, Caravelle (Bulova), etc. This Vantage uses a Hamilton 505 Electric movement made under licence by Standard Time Corp (Ricoh) of Japan, a Standard Time Corp 130E. I chose a close-up of the “Japan” marking on the movement as a clue.

Watch #3 …………………………………………………………. Movement #7

A 1973 Caravelle Digital mechanical. Caravelle was Bulova’s inexpensive watch line, generally found in chrome or gold plated cases, and many were made in West Germany. This one houses a Bulova/Caravelle Cal. 11 OWU 17j manual-wind movement. It is a West German movement, (I am unsure of the base calibre). I chose the close-up of the “21600” marking on the balance cock, as I have noticed that the German movement manufacturers of the era often marked the beat per hour on their movements.

Watch #4 …………………………………………………………. Movement #9

A 1970’s Bradley Donald Duck character watch. As is common for this sort of watch, it houses a 1j pin-pallet movement – in this case a BFG (Baumgartner) Cal. 34 (marked Bradley Time Div). The close-up of the pin-pallet escapment was a bit of a giveaway on this one.

Watch #5 …………………………………………………………. Movement #1

A Gruen Tonneau that looks for all the world to be from the 30’s/40’s, but is actually a 1950’s model (as identified by Paul Schliesser). The movement is a Gruen Cal. 411C 15j manual-wind. The clue here was the “CON”, of the “CONURUMA” marking on the balance cock. CONORUMA was Gruen’s proprietary temperature-compensating hairspring alloy, similar to Hamilton’s Elvinar.

Watch #6 …………………………………………………………. Movement #4

A Seiko one-register chrono from the late 60’s/early 70’s, with the Cal 6139B 17j column-wheel auto chrono movement. The clue here? The shock protection is Seiko’s in-house Diashock design.

Watch #7 …………………………………………………………. Movement #5

A Ralco 15j manual wind. The movement is an AS1220. I chose to include a close-up of the pierced bridge, as this was distinctive. This was probably one of the hardest to match, unless you could equate the watch with an early direct-seconds movement of average Swiss style finish.

Watch #8 …………………………………………………………. Movement #2

A Bulova ladies model with the Cal. 2302A 13j tuning-fork movement. As 13 jewels was an odd number, I thought it would indicate that this probably wasn’t a mechanical movement.

Watch #9 …………………………………………………………. Movement #6

An Omega Constellation Megasonic 720 Hz – a fairly uncommon watch. The Cal. 1220 movement is very distincitive in having a micromotor, which I chose to picture in close-up. That micromotor is quite a feat of engineering on a very small scale.

Watch #10 …………………………………………………………. Movement #8

An early 1930’s Waltham 7 1/4 ligne 15j ladies watch. I chose a close-up of the jewel settings, as this ‘in-line’ type of setting is often found on small rectangular shaped ladies size movements.